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[proposal] Canucks’ best play right now would be to move Adam Gaudette for a young defenseman in a similar predicament to Adam Gaudette

Here are some facts:

1) The Canucks will likely be stuck with Sutter for two more years, barring a deal with retention or adding a sweetener.

2) We have Tyler Madden in our system who has a very good chance of being in a similar to position to where Gaudette is right now.

3) The Canucks need more young promising pieces on defense.

4) With Pettersson and Horvat in our system for likely the next 10+ years, combined with the fact that bottom 6 centers can usually be easily signed/acquired in the off-season, I’m not sure if losing Gaudette would be the most devastating thing in the world.

I’m not sure as to exactly who’s an Adam Gaudette equivalent out there (Devon Toews? Roland Mckeown? Jeremy Lauzon?), but whoever that guy is, we need him in our system in my opinion.

We need a young defenseman that is pretty much NHL caliber right now, but is simply a victim of organizational depth. We need someone who has a reasonable shot of becoming a top 4 caliber dman in a few short years, if not sooner.

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If we weren’t willing to move Gaudette for Subban it’s unlikely we’d move him for a lesser piece.

Poile said NJD was the only team willing to take the full cap and that's why they made the trade with them. Gaudette would have been heading to the AHL in Nashville - they have no place for him on their roster. Their aim was to free cap space.

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1) The Canucks will likely be stuck with Sutter for two more years, barring a deal with retention or adding a sweetener.

2) We have Tyler Madden in our system who has a very good chance of being in a similar to position to where Gaudette is right now.

3) The Canucks need more young promising pieces on defense.

4) With Pettersson and Horvat in our system for likely the next 10+ years, combined with the fact that bottom 6 centers can usually be easily signed/acquired in the off-season, I’m not sure if losing Gaudette would be the most devastating thing in the world.

Olli Juolevi, Nikita Tryamkin, Jett Woo, Jack Rathbone, Guillaume Brisebois, Brogan Rafferty. Not to mention Quinn Hughes and Troy Stecher are already on the big club. How many young defencemen do we actually need in our system? We have more young D than forwards right now in our system so I wouldn't want to trade any of our young forwards for D help. I'd rather Benning just kept drafting Dmen instead. Our young D core is so deep Benning felt it wasn't even necessary to draft a defenceman this year.

Also, there is no sure bet Madden stays at centre in the NHL. With his speed he might be more suited to play wing.

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True, but as much as I hate to admit it, Juolevi is a huge question mark right now. He’s coming off of two major injuries and obviously hasn’t played a whole lot of hockey these past couple of years. When he was playing, his offensive game looked pretty good, but he also had some substantial holes in his defensive game. I remain hopeful that he lives up to his potential, but he’ll have his work cut out for him.

Look - I’m not one of those “gloom and doom” guys that you often see on HFCanucks. Truth be told, I have no idea why some of those guys even follow the Canucks but I’ll leave that discussion for another time.

The fact of the matter is this though: Outside of Hughes, we have a lot of question marks on our back end. Guys like Woo, and Juolevi have potential, but we can’t just automatically assume that they’ll be top 4 guys. When we start ASSuME(ing) things, it can end up making an ASS out of both U and ME. It’s an old expression, but it’s very applicable.

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Olli Juolevi, Nikita Tryamkin, Jett Woo, Jack Rathbone, Guillaume Brisebois, Brogan Rafferty. Not to mention Quinn Hughes and Troy Stecher are already on the big club. How many young defencemen do we actually need in our system? We have more young D than forwards right now in our system so I wouldn't want to trade any of our young forwards for D help. I'd rather Benning just kept drafting Dmen instead. Our young D core is so deep Benning felt it wasn't even necessary to draft a defenceman this year.

Also, there is no sure bet Madden stays at centre in the NHL. With his speed he might be more suited to play wing.

Out of those guys you mentioned, how many are projecting to be top 4 dmen? Stecher currently plays in the top 4, but is he really what you’d consider a GOOD Top 4 dman?

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Look - I’m not one of those “gloom and doom” guys that you often see on HFCanucks. Truth be told, I have no idea why some of those guys even follow the Canucks but I’ll leave that discussion for another time.

The fact of the matter is this though: Outside of Hughes, we have a lot of question marks on our back end. Guys like Woo, and Juolevi have potential, but we can’t just automatically assume that they’ll be top 4 guys. When we start ASSuME(ing) things, it can end up making an ASS out of both U and ME. It’s an old expression, but it’s very applicable.

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Maybe, but I think we are a little further ahead up front. PodKolzin, Hoglander, Madden, and Gaudette all look pretty promising.

I really want to sway about Juolevi on defense, but his recent injuries and defensive lapses have prevented me from pegging him as a bondafide Top 4 guy.

His injuries worry me more than anything about his play or his development curve which so far has been ok, he’s not producing relative to his draft position, but he has improved from start to finish both the last two years although he didn’t have enough games in the AHL to know absolutely (without any doubt).

He hasn’t played a full season since and including the year he was drafted in any league he’s played in, and the most he’s managed isn’t encouraging. His cocky draft talk about his obvious aversion to the gym I hope is something he’s taking seriously now, not many NHLers can get away without a gym regimen, it helps create a more resilient body which is just as important as adding strength. Quite a lot of this teams fortunes ride on him working out. Your correct in suggesting Hughes isn’t enough and that the none of the rest are slam dunks. I’d agree wholeheartedly that our forward group is in much better shape then the back end, add to that defenseman take years longer to establish themselves and we could be in quite a pickle if none of them work out. It’s easy to slot OJ in as Edlers eventual replacement, well Tanevs actually because that’s more his game but on the L side. Best case for the team is OJ steps in, remains healthy and earns a job this year, and Benn impresses too (the latter is very likely IMO), so we can let Edler go in two years (and keep Benn). Worst case OJ’s career goes nowhere. That would set us back quite a bit in cap space and in defenseman the same age as our core guys.

Woo id say has about the same odds as Madden working out, which is at least a definite possibility. Past that it’s fringe NHL stuff, nothing impactful, with Brisbois leading the charge at the moment. We have decent 7th defenseman depth, even good depth, but top four material two players maybe three and Hughes the only sure thing. If I had to bet I’d say two is all we are going to get, at least for now with whom we have, and would be all for trading to add to that list even if it meant giving up on something we want to keep.

Despite this JB has done a great job redoing our defense...we are much, much better then last year. It’s going to make a big difference for the goalies and for the forwards having a PMD and Myers for an entire season, plus Benn is a great PKer (Edler can take a break which will help keep him healthy) and also hits and also tilts the ice the other way...a complete steal.

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I agree that it would be nice to have some more d prospects but I don't see why trading Gaudette is the answer, or why we just don't put him in Utica to start the season so he can get more ice time. There's no need to lose him, at all.

I think Woo and Rathbone will take steps, and we've seen some decent minutes out of Sautner and Breisbois. Yes thats thin, but we also now have Fantenberg for depth. Tryamkin and Utenen are also out there somewhere.